Count Louis Zborowski at the wheel of Chitty 1

by Gerry Warren

Three new blue plaques recognising notable people from the Canterbury area are to be placed on the homes where they lived or worked.

They are artist Alfred Palmer, statistician William Sealy Gosset and builder of the Chitty Bang Bang cars Count Louis Zborowski.

The candidates have been short-listed from suggestions via the city council’s website and are expected to be approved by the council executive on Thursday.

Alfred Palmer was a founder member of the East Kent Arts Society and has works in the Beaney Gallery. He lived at Manor House, Fordwich, from 1920 to 1951.

William Sealy Gosset, who used the pen name Student, developed a test which proved fundamental to modern statistics. He was born and spent his early years at 6 St Martin’s Hill in Canterbury.

Count Louis Zborowski, who lived at Higham Park at Bridge, was a well-known engineer and racing driver who built the Chitty Bang Bang cars in his workshop at 16 St Radigund’s Street, Canterbury, in the early 1920s. He died in a crash in the Italian GP in 1923.

The Canterbury Blue Plaque Scheme was launched in 2003 and is based on the London scheme introduced by the Royal Society of Arts in 1867 but now run by English Heritage.

The three new candidates will join the 13 existing blue plaques in the district which commemmorate personalities including Peter Cushing, Ian Fleming, Henry Moore and Thomas Sidney Cooper.